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Sunday, March 19, 2017

A detailed version of President Donald Trump's budget to be released in May will lay out plans to eventually erase U.S. deficits, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday.

"We're getting into that now. By May, I think it's mid-May we're shooting for right now, we'll have that larger budget..." Mulvaney said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Mulvaney acknowledged that the budget would not be balanced in the upcoming 2018 fiscal year but said the administration wants to put the country on a path toward eventually wiping out annual deficits....

Bloody hell. Although it was becoming more and more apparent that this administration is cuckoo, this confirms that they're also stupid, sadistic and parasitic. This is worse than all the dumb fuckery about Obama spying through a microwave oven and the British, at the behest of the US intelligence agencies, spying on Trump towers.

Trump's clearly something of an idiot and a complete maniac. Anyone who inquires whether it is wrong to be sexually attracted to your own daughter, evidently has serious issues and should seek immediate psychiatric help, not occupancy of the oval office. Yes, you disgusting monster, it is WRONG, ASTRONOMICALLY WRONG, OFF THE FUCKING SCALES WRONG, WORDS-CAN'T-DESCRIBE-HOW-WRONG-IT-IS WRONG to be sexually attracted to your own daughter. Other than paedophiles, who is unaware of this? In fact, many paedophiles know it's wrong but can't help themselves, yet they have the good sense not to inquire whether it's right or wrong. What the fuck are we dealing with here?

Larry Johnson, a former intelligence officer, said he served unknowingly as a source of Fox News senior analyst Andrew Napolitano, who incorrectly used his information to back the claim that British intelligence wiretapped Trump Tower.…

“Now, I had known about the fact that the British through GHCQ were passing information back-channel. This was not done at the direction of Barack Obama. Let's be clear about that. It was being done with the full knowledge of people like John Brennan and Jim Clapper,” Johnson said Sunday....

“I'm not saying the British GHCQ was wiretapping Trump's Tower. … [Napolitano] shouldn't have used the word wiretap. I call it an ‘information operation’ that's been directed against President Trump and people like John Brennan,” Johnson said.

Tom, that's absolutely right and Trump's stupid slander is coming back to bite him. The MSM are gonna be all over this. GCHQ doesn't do a damn thing without NSA approval. It has long been understood that GCHQ is more or less an extension of the NSA, not a completely independent agency.

Depending on how UK government wants to handle this, this whole farce could end up doing serious damage to Trump. If the UK demands a public retraction and a public apology, which it can easily force, Trump's in deep trouble. Many within the UK political and military establishment are now *demanding* a full public apology. The US deep state may pressure the UK government to fuck Trump with the TRUTH, which would be a novel approach. Up until now it's all been bullshit about Trump being a Kremlin stooge or the victim of blackmail: videos of golden showers or heaven knows what else.

Kneecapping Trump with the truth would play well with Americans: a bigmouthed pussy-grabbing birther undermining the closest international friendship by levelling knowingly absurd slanders because his previous absurd slanders against the US agencies became unstuck. It'd make him look like Nixon on steroids. If the soft vote for Trump hasn't already dissipated, it'll collapse if Trump is forced to make a public apology to the UK. Trump never apologises. The UK is in a position to turn the screws on this blundering orange fool. This would then force Trump to stop alluding to bullshit by Breitbart and Fox. That would be a big plus to the deep state and the MSM, or to quote Trump "the failing" MSM.

So much "winning" John! So much that they should start calling it "losing BIGLY." Cheeto is going down like a sack of shit. No denying it now. He should have been such an easy target for people to take down but instead the idiots were busy chasing nonexistent Russian ghosts. Now they'll have real stuff to hit him with.

Did you guys also see what his approval rating is in Gallup right now? Even Rasmussen has this guy's disapproval rating at more than 50% now, the same poll I'd seen people try to use to claim his approval ratings were bigger. I guess all of a sudden, this would be "fake news!" too.

Of course an intentionally balanced budget of the monetary sovereign is unjust* and stupid** but those who support positive yielding sovereign debt are complicit in that such yields imply the monetary sovereign must borrow its own fiat.

*The money supply should grow to accommodate population growth otherwise the old loot the young via deflation.

You could balance the budget or even run surpluses and have an even higher output economy... the deficit is savings... or as Warren puts it "it's always an unspent income story" ... the deficit is the accounting for the unspent income within any fiscal interval...

If Trump gets the USD zombie lower than whale shit complete disgraced weirdo USD fetishist foreigners to dis-save their USDs he could balance the budget and we could have much higher domestic output...

Matt, and the chances of that are what exactly? About zero, or to be more accurate exactly zero? In which case, the US economy is going to have a nasty downturn. What, you think with all those fraudsters, corporate raiders and religious bigots he's got in his cabinet that they're going to smash it out of the park? Come on, be serious. They're loons, and loons do loony things. That's the zeroth law of lunacy.

Penguin: "He should have been such an easy target for people to take down but instead the idiots were busy chasing nonexistent Russian ghosts."

I think they're starting to understand this, and the hit's they're going to hit him with will be bonecrunching because they'll all be undeniably true and will cause Trump to do the one thing that hurts him more than anything, and that's to apologise.

Even with the disgraceful birther stuff or the pussy grabbing stuff, he never actually apologised. He blamed Killary for the racist birtherism, and said of the pussy grabbing that it was "locker talk". Trump's having to apologise is like Samson being shorn of his hair. He becomes powerless. Dread to think whether Trump is willing to bring down the temple. Is Ivanka the pussy-grabber's Delilah?

Mike imo for USD to go down vs other currencies the foreign firms have to get better (higher) prices in USD than presently for their products...

This could happen even with a balanced trade as that comparison is on quantity not price terms... "it's about price not quantity..."

What has me most encouraged now is the Fed policy on rates i.e. the interest income has a good chance of slowly but steadily increasing which will increase incomes in USDs and those people will be able to pay a bit more for their Lexus and BMWs and Mercedes Benz... maybe be able to pay more for imported oil eventually...

I think if the Fed keeps raising then eventually U.K. and Eur Japan will follow and get rates going up over there too which will help those economies domestically and take some pressure off the US operations of firms in those countries to make up for shitty domestic sales by lowering prices in their US divisions...

iow for EUR back to 1.40 and JPY back to .79 you wouldn't want to see any rebates and there would be a return to waiting lists for popular models of the Japanese and German autos and accordingly the prices UP in USD terms...

I wonder who talked Trump out of his big infrastructure ideas? The one thing he knows is building right? Wtf does he know about healthcare? Or immigration bans?

If he had someone close to him who wasn't a syncophant, they would get him focused on his infrastructure plans. He could even sneak the border wall in to it. But alas, he is just another austerity/ Austrian fool. Get into gold y'all.

"I wonder who talked Trump out of his big infrastructure ideas? The one thing he knows is building right? Wtf does he know about healthcare? Or immigration bans?"

Nothing Dave. He's just another CNBC kind of PR moron and a lot of people, even well meaning ones, fell for his snake oil hook, line and sinker. He doesn't make his BS as obvious as Peter Schiff does, but you can see some of the same broken clock tactics. I just can't believe anyone thought this bozo was gonna save them. Seriously. As you said before, he is a polarizing figure and I can understand how some people on this blog could like him, and how other econ bloggers thought he was gonna be this big spender and go Reaganomics 2.0 on us.

Mike is rightfully having buyers remorse. I saw someone at another blog say in a couple of months, many people would never admit to have voting for him in the first place. I guess they had a point.

Penguin pop, I guess I never saw it that way but your right, it's straight out of Shiff's playbook, complete with a government conspiracy, false prophecy about the end of the world, and an overpriced product to buy on faith. To the T.

I saw through him, but I also understood why people hated Hillary and the liberal establishment. If Bernie runs in 2020 he might win in a landslide. If he lives that long lol.

"I saw through him, but I also understood why people hated Hillary and the liberal establishment. If Bernie runs in 2020 he might win in a landslide. If he lives that long lol."

Yeah I voted third-party and for Jill Stein mainly cause of her New Deal style plan, but did it knowing that I live in a red state where my vote wouldn't have changed the results either way. Electoral College pretty much gave Trump the victory, even though even in some of these swing states, he barely won at all. Dan Lynch, another regular here, did the same thing.

The one remotely good thing about status quo boring HRC is at least she doesn't believe in as much of the batshit nonsense as Cheeto does, though I'm sure it's pretty likely we would have saw a bit of austerity under her presidency too and the same thing Obama was doing before. There were rumors going around she had been in contact with Blackstone Group and wanted to privatize Social Security, but I'm not sure how true those were either in hindsight.

I highly doubt we would have seen penalties for being late on student loans increased if she was president today for example. I know people who loved Bernie a ton who knew she wasn't as progressive for their tastes, but had to suck it up and vote against Agent Orange in any way possible and I think that was the case with many people as well.

A few bones here and there would have been thrown, and the decline of the US would be slower and more prolonged. The table scraps she might have given us are looking quite appetizing right now compared to the sea of swamp monster piss and shit manchild Donny Tinyhands (HT to Jimmy Dore for that name) has thrown at us so far.

Yeah Trump pretty much sucks. What is concerning is you never see him truly happy, he either looks mad, sarcastic, or like he's enjoying the Faults and failings of other people. But never genuine happiness or joy.

I think that it is inevitable that he will become among the most hated men to ever be president.

I wonder who talked Trump out of his big infrastructure ideas? The one thing he knows is building right? Wtf does he know about healthcare? Or immigration bans?

1. The president has to work with Congress and Congress has its own priorities. The #1 priority in Congress is addressing the ACA, either with repeal or repeal and replace, or tweak. Trump has allied with RyanCare which is a tweak, even though it doesn't meet his campaign promises.

2. Trump has to throw his base the red meat on promises which got him elected. As major promise was addressing illegal immigration, including building the wall and closing the border to refugees from Islamic countries.

Both of these involve a huge expenditure of political capital. He is also faced with RussiaGate, which is also eating up political capital.

3. Coming up is the fight over Gorsuch's nomination to SCOTUS and the debt ceiling again. Both of the these will eat up more political capital.

This takes the administration past the 100 day mark. The biggest projects should have been in the process by then if not in the bag.

Infrastructure may not come up seriously this year. I don't see any push for it with the administration juggling so many knives.

As QE showed beyond a doubt converting Tsy cDs.into any other asset does not mean the previous tsy holders are dissaving. As there are more then one way to.save. actual foreigner dissaving.would be seen in the trade balance not in the amount of govt CD accounts foreigners have at the fed

It's interesting to see how much of the village has to be burned to save it before certain people here lost their Trump cheerleading. The funniest ones are the Lefties still pumping Bernie/Jill - are they going to lose their purity in time for 2020? Maybe a balanced-budget depression and personally standing in soup lines is the only think that can shake them out of their stupor. Burn, baby, burn.

"If Trump gets the USD zombie lower than whale shit complete disgraced weirdo USD fetishist foreigners to dis-save their USDs he could balance the budget and we could have much higher domestic output..."

This is your take? Sorry Matt, I don't understand how this is anything other than a ridiculous contortion of MMT principles that leaves room for higher interest rates. It smacks of cognitive dissonance.

First, there is no indication Trump or anyone in his administration knows this.

Second, even if it's sort of true, it's absurdly implausible. What you are suggesting is that nations that have built their entire economy on exports will stop exporting to the USA. And that the USA should arrange it's internal affairs to rely on what external parties are doing.

A better MMT take is for the USA to ignore the unspent income and to carry on with our internal plans. This will be far better for everyone except those who wish interest rates were higher. Cry me a river.

Trump becoming Pres might be the best thing that ever happened to the progressive movement as it was the only way to discredit the corrupt and incompetent corporate Dem establishment. Who BTW have been doing a bang up job burning the place down in you're vernacular

I didn't say this was his plan ... but he could end up there just by luck ... he is brow beating the disgraced USD zombies to stop being zombies and balance the trade and use the USD savings they already have to buy US sourced items to increase US output...

They only export to the western nations that have the premiere currencies... so they have NOT built their economies on exports, they have built economies to acquire western currencies.... they are corrupt, pieces of shit, hacking, western wannabe zombie nations...

One disgraceful thing that adds to the value of the US dollar is that one may buy a risk-free return with it in the form of US Treasury Bills, Notes and Bonds. Another is interest on reserves (IOR) paid by the Federal Reserve. But a risk-free return is welfare and is welfare proportional to the amount of US dollar savings one has, not need.

So, let's eliminate welfare proportional to US dollar savings and then foreigners shall have more incentive to invest in the US and buy US goods and services.

But then who will buy US Treasury Bills, Notes and Bonds if they don't have a positive yield? Hence the need for NEGATIVE interest on account balances at the Federal Reserve (a.k.a. "reserves" in the case of depository institutions) with a $250,000 or so individual citizen exemption.

And what to do with the interest income obtained thereby? ans: Distribute it equally to all US citizens as a Citizens Dividend and thereby reduce unjust* relative wealth inequality.

*Unjust since welfare proportional to savings is unjust and thus has been a source of unjust relative wealth inequality in the US.

Ppl Want the major Western currencies because of what you can buy with those currencies. You can buy stocks you can buy real estate you can buy every possible type of real goods and services. What are you going to do with the Bangladeshi currency spend it in the domestic Bangladeshi Market? Maybe the Bangladeshi NASDAQ has real growth potential. LOL.

This is the fundamental value of currencies ..... What can you buy with it? So why do foreigners want US Dollars, because you can buy anything in the world with US dollars

Go away troll. Don't you have some other website to go to spout your bullshit. That comment doesn't contribute in any way to the conversations and it doesn't Disqualify any of the truisms that I just said in my previous comment. Go back to your Bible group crying out loud And leave us the fuck alone